 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to CSIS. I'm Jennifer Cook. I direct the Africa program here. I'm delighted to welcome you all to CSIS. And I want to thank the panel for joining this discussion. We hope this will be interactive debate and discussion. Looking at some of the policy issues and policy dilemmas and policy priorities as the president travels to Ethiopia and Kenya next week. The fourth trip as president to Africa, one that has generated a lot of expectations in the countries he's traveling to, and one that I think kind of highlights some of the challenges and kind of dilemmas within the US policy towards these countries, each of which are important security partners to the United States, each of which have seen fairly strong positive economic growth and investments in infrastructure, trade, and pretty strong growth rates, although not without limits and not without some controversies, each of which has been important partners historically, and each of which is facing, in certain cases, a rollback of civil liberties, some concern over media restrictions, limits on civil society, counter-terror laws that have been overly, kind of, fairly broadly interpreted. And so they bring to light, I think, the various strands of US policy and how the White House and the president will kind of wage these different policies to one against the other, and how these base that. We have here today a great panel who have spent a lot of time looking at the region as a whole, also looking at the levers of US policy and the internal policy dynamics that work within the US administration, Congress, business community, and so forth. So we're going to have each, say, a few words about kind of their, kind of the priority topics as they lessens for the president as he travels. What they see is the important priorities on the trip, as well as analysis on the countries to which he's traveling. We're going to start with Mark Bellamy, the Ambassador Mark Bellamy, who is Warburg Professor of International Relations at Simmons College in Boston. He's a senior advisor to the Africa program here. And he's former Ambassador Vidkenya with a long career in the Foreign Service serving in a number of African post-governments. So thank you. And we'll turn then to Terrence Lyons, who is Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. Long-term focus on political development, transnational politics, democracy and governance. Terrence has spent a great deal of his career focusing on Ethiopia and done a lot of work with USAID, the World Bank, and others on democracy and governance issues there. We'll follow up with Sarah Prey, the senior policy analyst for Africa in the Open Society Foundation's DC office. Sarah, along with OSI, works with policymakers and with a huge network of civil society groups across Africa, particularly with very strong networks in Kenya and Ethiopia to some extent, although I'm sure she'll talk about the challenges of that. We then have E.J. Wilkendorne, who is with the crisis group, which does just terrific analysis. They have a big network on the group, focusing on issues of security, conflict, peacemaking. Last each to speak fairly briefly for discussion and debate. We're going to start with Ambassador. Thanks. Thanks very much, General Brexford. It's great to see this big crowd here today. There are different angles with reviewing the President's trip to East Africa, issues that he could talk about at both stops, global issues, regional issues, bilateral issues. I'm going to focus my remarks today on the bilateral aspects of why that relationship is a story that has been very important, how it has come under quite a bit of strain in recent years, and what few themes are probably important in the context of a recent, if that's an objective during the President's visit. I probably don't need to be laborer at the point with this audience, the Kenya, the bilateral relationship with Kenya, the US-Kina relationship has been historically a pretty important one for the United States. In Africa, just a few facts from randoms will illustrate the breadth of that relationship, the fact that for many years, our embassy in Nairobi was our largest in sub-Saharan Africa. I don't think that's still the case, but for quite a while in the embassy was the largest. Our largest aid program in Africa for a number of years over the past decade was in Kenya. At one point, I think it was the fifth largest aid program globally for the United States, our largest CDC presence anywhere in the world that's in Kenya. We probably get more African students from Kenya than from any other African country, both university and graduate students, which illustrates the depth of the people-to-people relationships. Our intelligence and security relationships with Kenya are long-standing. They go back a long way. I was thinking yesterday, I don't think we've actually ever had to interrupt our security assistance flows to Kenya, except one time I can remember was when the Canadian government rather commendably held out against U.S. pressure to exempt U.S. service members from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. And they were sanctioned under U.S. law for that principal position, which is more than a little ironic given current circumstances in Kenya. This is a deep historical relationship during the Cold War. Daniel Eric Moy was considered an ally of the United States, and he was rewarded accordingly. In the post-Cold War period, Kenya emerged as almost an island of stability and a very turbulent Horn of Africa region. And Kenya served as a hub for the United States and for other international actors as we put together interventions and programs to deal with conflict and humanitarian crises in places like South Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia. And after the 1998 bombing of our embassy in Kenya, Kenya became a very important partner of the United States in the fighting against global terror, specifically the fighting against al-Qaeda in East Africa. Finally, one point that I think is important to underline in that the United States has a fairly commendable record, I believe, of protection of human rights and supporting the modernization in Kenya, particularly in the 1990s. There are many Kenyans today who remember, some of them are usually some of them nervously, perhaps, that the United States funded and advised and encouraged civil society organizations who were campaigning for multi-partyism in Kenya, who were campaigning for greater democratic governance. And so that is a part. It's an important part, I think, of our legacy by the world. So there's a long history there. It has come under strain in recent years and I think this could mostly be traced to the period just before, during, and after the 2013 presidential elections in Kenya. Many of you will recall that both candidate Kaguya Kenyatta and William Ruto were indicted by the ICC. They stood for the presidency. They used, they stood for office, describe those indictments, and they rallied their respective ethnic constituencies around the idea that these ICC cases were, in fact, sinister plots, sinister neo-colonial plots, meant to subjugate and humiliate Kenya that Kenyans who continued to call for accountability before the ICC were, in fact, traitors. After the election, after President Kenyatta and William Ruto were successfully elected, the continuation of these ICC cases was made a litmus test. Both of loyalty or how one lined up vis-a-vis the ICC was made a litmus test of one's loyalty in Patriotism at home and a litmus test of Kenya's relationships abroad. It was an accident that the first big foreign visit that really elected Kaguya Kenyatta was to China, to the UK or to the US. So in this, some of the poisonous post-election atmosphere, the opposition groups, the media, civil society were all targeted to some degree, sometimes violently. Venturi all flowed from Nairobi in the direction of Washington. It included charges that the United States was funding NGOs with the aim of undermining the Kenyatta administration, or even with the aim of regime change in Kenya. This was an historic low point in our religion, 2013, 2014. Now, tensions and strains have eased somewhat recently, in part because the ICC case against President Kenyatta has been dropped, but also in part, I believe, as the Kenyans judged, that their aggressive campaign has been somewhat successful, both in terms of howling the domestic opponents and in silencing or making more surface fact, their international critics. When President Obama visits Kenya, obviously he's gonna be aware of these recent sensitivities. That doesn't mean that he has to balance them, but an awareness of these sensitivities is important as you go about resetting the bilateral relationship. And I would just point to, I think, three important themes that need to be looked at in the context of any resetting of U.S.-Kenyan relations. And the first of these is pretty obvious, which is to celebrate the big economic and development success story in Kenya today. The Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi will, of course, be a centerpiece for that. If anyone is interested in gaining a sense of the mood of confidence and optimism in Kenya today, economically, I highly suggest you go back and believe President Kenyatta's State of the Union message from last March, which is a real tour de force, political barnstorming, and in many respects actually accurately reflecting the big strides that Kenya has made over the past decade, things such as a rebasing of the economy and sustained 6% growth rates that have actually lifted Kenya into the rank of low and middle-income countries, major new resource discoveries, big infrastructure projects underway around Kenya Road and rail networks, large increases in energy production, continuing increases in broadband connectivity, rising maybe a more visible and middle class in Kenya today, and investors and creditors banging on the door, looking for opportunities to get involved in Kenya's growth story. You can sense the confidence in Nairobi, almost a sense of swagger and gelato on the part of Kenyani leads, a sense that maybe Kenya for the first time since it's independent really does have its own, its destiny in its own hands, does have options as a nation that it did not have before, and does have options in terms of who it chooses to partner with internationally. That will be, I think, what President Obama encounters in Nairobi, and it makes great sense to celebrate the success story and to look for ways to reinforce it and to connect with Kenya's success story. Now, just a couple of quick caveats, it's far from clear that this boom is completely sustainable. Some of these resource discoveries are gonna be pretty slow coming online if they are ever realized, in particular, a big project to run a rail and pipeline, or a road and pipeline from the Lamu, Lamu port into southern Sudan, it's getting nowhere now, not likely to go anywhere as long as the condition of southern Sudan is the way it is, or the way global oil prices, the real estate boom in Nairobi beginning to look like a bubble, and there's an inequality issue here as well. Not everybody is getting rich as quickly as the Nairobi elites are, and that, at some point down the line, could close a serious perception problem for the government. If there is a perception that this boom is disproportionately favoring one community or another, that could be a formula for a serious problem approach. Second theme, I think important and another obvious one are Kenya's security challenges that Kenya is facing, and this is a high priority both for Kenya and for the United States. The reality is... In Kenya, it's extremely serious, and it's one that the Kenyan government is not currently in a position to adequately deal with. And the Kenyans will expect hope for sympathy and support from President Obama. They may also hope for increased intelligence sharing, more equipment, more training, and all of that would be fairly easy for us to supply, and I suspect we will be tempted to do so and to respond positively. It's very much in our interest in that we hope Kenya begin to get control of the security situation, but I'm not sure that that particular sharpness or the potential of those kind, that kind of maybe is the necessary and the best way to go about it. Kenya's security problems are not that it lacks allies or that it lacks training or it lacks equipment. Kenya's security problems have to do with pervasive corruption in the security sector, with spotting leadership, lack of coordination between security agencies, and the wrong doctrines in terms of the counter-insurgency that they need to conduct against our Shabab. In some ways, Kenya's situation is not that different than Nigeria's, means that we both go home. But Kenya needs, above all else, its tele-global security sector reform. And hopefully, there may be a way that President Obama could connect our security governance initiative to this impact on the security sector reform in order to push Kenya in the right direction and enable the assistance we give them to be more effectively used. If we don't do that, I fear that we will simply be adding, doing what is easiest for us to do, but not what addresses Kenya's fundamental security problems, in fact, which may exacerbate their problems. Finally, third theme I want to stress is that the President is going to have to address human rights and governance issues in Kenya and in Ethiopia as well. This doesn't have to be done in an in-your-face manner, but it can't be sidestepped, which I think his Kenyan hosts would prefer be the case. One big set of problems has to do with the reaction to the al-Shabab menace in Kenya. And this reaction has included extra-digital killings, collective punishment of entire communities, roundups and shakedowns of thousands of ordinary citizens, most of them of Somali origin, restrictions on media coverage of terrorist events, and wide-ranging crackdowns on NGOs that are vaguely suspected of contributing to radicalization or somehow delegitimizing the state. I don't have any doubt that some of those who have disappeared probably were al-Shabab's sympathizers and recruiters, and some of the NGOs that may have been delisted or targeted, and perhaps were providing some form of assistance to the insurgency in Kenya. But this broad-ranging crackdown has done very little to actually slow al-Shabab's progress in Kenya. And what it's done instead is to widen the gulf between the security forces and the communities that they need to be protecting and cooperating with. And it has probably also contributed to a recruitment of frustrated and angry young Kenyans into al-Shabab's ranks. So it would be well for us, I think, to emphasize, the president to emphasize, that in this respect, at least, Kenya's counterterrorism campaign isn't working. These crackdowns, by the way, proceed from it in some ways seem similar to the crackdowns I mentioned earlier following the 2013 elections. And that is that, I think, some in Kenya to worry that the terrorism in problem in Kenya may be used as a pretext for a restriction of political liberties in ways that benefit the partisan political agenda of the government. Finally, I just want to say I mentioned earlier the legacy of the 1990s of the U.S. supporting the rule of law, democratization, advancement of human rights in Kenya. We were on the right side of that debate back then. We were, I think, admired by many Kenyans, perhaps not by Daniel and Eric Moy, but by many Kenyans for the stand that we took. One lesson I think we can derive from that is that we usually end up on the right side of history when we stick by our principles. Certainly that's the case in Kenya. The trick for President Obama, and maybe the hardest part of this visit, is going to be to calibrate his diplomacy in this area and to do so quietly and effectively, but in a way that makes it very clear what our concerns are, but not done in a way that overshadows the rest of his visit. I think I'll stop there, Jennifer, with those few points. No, thank you, Mars. Great. Terrence. Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be back at CSIS. I think the first publication I ever had on US Ethiopia was with the CSIS Africa Notes with Helen Kitchen. So this reminds me of the long tradition CSIS has had in promoting policy-oriented discussions on relations with Africa. So I'm very happy to be here. I'm going to speak on Ethiopia. Let me begin by saying that in addition to the challenges of Ethiopia, the president will be speaking at the Africa Union. And that is, in fact, one of the main reasons, I think, for going to Ethiopia. There's an interest in increasing African governance, increasing Africa's commitment to regional security. The Africa Union is a very weak organization, but yet has taken on some of the most difficult challenges and while imperfect, it is the show. And so I think that that is a worthy objective of a presidential trip. And clearly, if he's in Addis Ababa, he's going to have bilateral meetings with the government there. And that is a much more difficult, in my mind at least, balancing act, not unsimilar or at least some of the echoes of the challenges in Kenya also apply to Ethiopia. But let me get to my main points. I'm going to make a couple of points of the context for US policy and then a few more particular points. So this is really the first couple of points of just for me to articulate what I think US policy towards Ethiopia has been of late. If you listen to policymakers, they often talk about policy towards Ethiopia as a three-pronged policy or a three-legged stool that consists of support for economic growth and poverty alleviation, support for security, the security relationship that the US has with Ethiopia, and then a assertion that the third leg of this stool is support for democracy, human rights, and media freedom. I'll get to that, of course, in a minute. And these three prongs are, of course, in tension. In some ways, that's not surprising. Not all good things go together, and so it's a mixed message. It's a complicated message. I heard a senior US official when I was talking about the authoritarian nature of the EPRDF responded, yes, but it's a friendly authoritarian state. And that kind of phrase gets to this kind of tension, that there are things to say about Ethiopia that you would say about a friend. And simultaneously, there are things to say about Ethiopia that you would say about an authoritarian state. And these things are not their intention, but they can coexist together. Let me go through the first couple of legs, two legs, and then rather a little more on the democracy and human rights and allow my colleagues here and those of you in the room who know so much to speak. That there, I think there has been genuine change at a grassroots level with regard to poverty in Ethiopia. I would urge the president or anybody thinking about Ethiopia to look at the kind of village level health clinic, regional university kinds of contributions that have been made, and less so on the kind of high modernism of huge dams and trains and so on. I think the real difference is coming at a real micro level and there's a long way to go. It's a very early days of a huge developmental challenge, but there are some things there that deserve support and deserve a recognition. There's some challenges on the economic side. In particular, I think there's some challenges on the questions of how it's called land leases. A lot of other people would call them land grabs, but that land is being leased to multinational corporations in a way that the most marginalized populations typically do not benefit in justly in the rewards of those projects. On the security front, there's two prongs of that as well. There's a counter-terrorism piece and then there's a peacekeeping piece. The US does have counter-terrorism interests in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia has interest in counter-terrorism in the Horn of Africa. I'm not at all certain they are always the same interests. They both have concerns, often concerns about the same groups, but for very different reasons and with very different histories and with very different desired endpoints. And I think the US ought to be clear on where Ethiopia is doing things in its own interest and we see that as advancing our interests and when Ethiopia is doing things in its interests that are not serving our interests and so on. This particularly relates to Eritrea and Somalia. I say another word about that, but in my concluding points to ask the question on counter-terrorism policy, are these policies creating more or less instability in the long term? Are they serving US interests or not in the long term? The other part of that security relationship though that I think has to be included is the question on peacekeeping and Ethiopia's support for multilateral peacekeeping operations. The US has been very, very happy with that Ethiopia has provided troops on some of the difficult peacekeeping operations in Sudan and Darfur and South Sudan, Abye, and that in many ways from those troops are not easily replaced. I won't say that they're replaceable, but it'd be very difficult to get troops in a state of readiness and with the capabilities that Ethiopian troops have. All right, if that was all there was to the story in some ways, it would be a much easier trip, but Ethiopia, this third leg of the stool, relates to questions of democracy, human rights, and media freedom. I can speak at length about what a strong authoritarian ruling party, the EPRDF, the ruling party, Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front is. The fact that they won 100% of the seats in the May elections, how much more than 100% do you need to know? It's a pretty clear indication of just how powerful they are. They're also, until recently, the largest, Africa's largest jailer or journalist, and there's really been a process ever since the 2005 elections, competitive elections that I think frightened or at least alarmed the EPRDF. It's been an ongoing process of criminalizing dissent, that if you are trying to articulate an alternative to the party, that is being treated as treason, that's being treated as in league with terrorists, that's being treated as illegitimate, anti-constitutional, anti-people, as they sometimes use the language in Ethiopia, and that is part of this very, very strong authoritarian system, and in that way, U.S. relations with Ethiopia, rather than Kenya, perhaps more resemble relations with other strategically, geo-strategically important states that have troublesome records on democracy and human rights from the U.S. point of view, countries like Egypt, countries like Pakistan, countries where two things are going that are in tension with each other, and therefore the United States often struggles to come up with the message when in fact there's two different things that they want to articulate, and so that will be Obama's, President Obama's challenge. To say simultaneously, we're very happy with some of the development advances, we really appreciate your support for peacekeeping in Abye and in South Sudan negotiations, but we have deep, deep concerns about the almost complete elimination of political space, the arrests of journalists, the harassment of opposition parties, and the restrictions on civil society, maybe just to make sure, since I don't leave this off the record that people think I'm not making the point, that Ethiopia has put in laws that really restrict, have the intention and have had the effect of basically eliminating the ability of Ethiopian civil society organizations to work on democratization, human rights, even things like women's rights, children's rights, the rights of disabled peoples, and that is extremely problematic in a state as large and as complicated as Ethiopia, and it's also used the counter-terrorism law to really restrict media, I'd be happy to speak more, and my colleagues may want to fill in some of those details. Now the two, that's the kind of context of the policy, the two, although I almost always will come up with three, but the two main points that I want to give that are a little bit more trying to synthesize is one is on the question of US leverage over Ethiopia, and then the second is about short-term versus long-term security. US government officials often will say that they have very limited leverage over Ethiopia. After all, a lot of our aid budget is tied to things like HIV-AIDS or humanitarian assistance, and so we can't really threaten to cut off that money in order to accomplish, to apply pressure on a government as fiercely proud and resistant of international pressure as the Ethiopian government has been, and there's something to that, but I think the point that comes up in the context of this trip is that this trip is leverage. This trip is something the Ethiopians really, really wanted, and while the US might want to say no, it's not a steal of approval, it's part of discussions with the state, like we have discussions with all kinds of state, you know, look at the Ethiopian government's webpage during the time of the trip, but look at what was gonna lead the local news. Look what the embassy is gonna say. This is a big, big deal to Ethiopia, and therefore, to me, the question is, how has that leverage been used in ways that can advance US interests on democracy and human rights? And I think, at least to date, the answer hasn't been much to show for it. There have been some journalists who've been released, and I'm very, very happy to see that. One might well say in the same breath if I can not breathe long enough, but these journalists probably, these journalists never should have been arrested, so freeing these journalists doesn't get you a gold star, it just means that you have now taken that step. I understand these journalists, by the way, have not been given back their passports, so even as they've been released, it's a kind of a restricted ability to play their important role as independent journalists. What I would think is the much more kind of structural changes that ought to be on the agenda, where this leverage of this trip ought to be used, is one, while the journalists are important, they're important as individual stories, as people who some of us know, but that the real structural power issue, what's much more important is the conviction of the Ethiopian Muslim leadership that took place earlier this month. That is a big, big deal. That is an important movement. That is where the Ethiopian government is in real tension with a significant portion of its community, and it really, I think, tells yet another story about how authoritarianism works in Ethiopia. I also think that, to get back to the laws that I mentioned, what would really matter where you'd see real evidence of the use of this leverage is on things like the CSO law, this regulation of NGOs. If that was changed, if that was removed, I'd say, okay, the US is really getting something for its leverage, or if the anti-terrorism law was counter-terrorism law, was changed in a way that it wasn't applied so broadly that it's very difficult for independent journalists to do their work, and so I would be very happy and will look to see if the US government, if President Obama is able to raise these issues that I think are much more than the symbolic issues, but really get at the heart of why there is such a limited political space in Ethiopia. The second and final, until I think of a third issue has to do with this question, are we building our relationships in the Horn of Africa around an assumption regarding Ethiopia's likely stability and Ethiopia's role as a stabilizing force in the region that needs to be questioned? In other words, if the answer to, well, we have to have the strong, friendly relationship with Ethiopia because it is essential for stability in the region, is that necessarily true? Is it true in the long term? What happens to this regime, five, 10, 15 years out, and what might the US be doing now to prepare for that? How is Ethiopia, in fact, playing roles that may destabilize in Somalia, in Eritrea, and potentially elsewhere in the region? I was very taken with Ambassador Bellamy's reminder of the US legacy of working on pro-democracy NGO development in Kenya at a time when it wasn't welcomed, when it was controversial, where the government didn't thank us for that, but yet the payoffs that you see down the road. And I don't think that kind of logic or that type of concern for working with long term, building long term relationships with the key political leaders of the future has been made. Let me also on this question of relationships, maybe just end with one final point to make sure that some of you, I know a journalist who will be going on this trip or who follow relationships. The Ethiopian government has made some really quite astonishing Bellaco statements about Eritrea recently, that really are laying the groundwork for what could be an escalation of that conflict, the Ethiopian Eritrea conflict, and that it would be very useful for the United States and for President Obama to say directly to the highest level officials, we are not on board with you on that. Crossing the border into Eritrea would be a catastrophe and you shouldn't do it. To make sure that there's no, was it a yellow light or a green light or a red light, but no ambiguity on that point. Let me leave it there because I know we have so many questions and wisdom in the room and on my other panelists and thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm gonna speak about four things today. First, dive into a little bit more detail about the point that Ambassador Bellamy made around civil society in Kenya and what has been happening lately and how hopefully the President's trip will catalyze some change. Second, to dive in again a little deeper on the U.S.-Kenya security relationship. Third, to talk briefly about corruption in Kenya and how this U.S. trip may be able to spur some movement on that. And lastly, a bit about the refugee situation. As Jennifer mentioned, the Open Society Foundations has an East Africa Foundation. It is based in Nairobi. We focus primarily on human rights and governance grants to civil society organizations. We do not make grants in Ethiopia for very legitimate and obvious reasons. We are an international and grant-making organization. Two of our grantees in Kenya have been the subject of intimidation, harassment, and potentially life-changing conduct from the government of Kenya. And those two organizations are called Muslims for Human Rights, or Mahuri, and Haki Africa. These two organizations are based in Mombasa and they are at the heart of the fight between the communities that are the victims of terrorism and also the victims of counterterrorism operations by the government of Kenya and the government of Kenya itself. They play an absolutely essential role in building a bridge between the government and these communities. And yet, do in large part to their criticism of the government of Kenya for these counterterrorism tactics that, as Ambassador Bellamy mentioned, have resulted in gross human rights violations, found themselves under fire. And in August, they were placed on a list of entities suspected to be associated with al-Shabaab and their bank accounts were frozen. Despite complying with every single request from the government of Kenya and the NGO Coordination Board, to this day their bank accounts remain frozen. There was a glimmer of hope when the high court ruled recently that they do not belong on this list. Of being suspected of associating with al-Shabaab. But again, they're in limbo. Hopefully, the president ahead of his trip can move the government of Kenya on their status. Very concretely, we would hope that any meeting with civil society that the president has includes these two groups. It would send a very clear signal of support for not only these groups, their work, the Muslim community that is finding itself increasingly discriminated against, harassed and victimized. And it also would support the president's purported policy of standing by civil society. As you know for the last several years, this has been repeatedly emphasized by the president in numerous speeches and policy and programming that the US is going to stand by civil society. When he was in Panama earlier this year, he said civil society is the conscience of our countries. And that's a powerful statement. So let's turn that rhetoric into a reality. And although it is no doubt diplomatically uncomfortable when pressing this point, we nevertheless hope that the president makes this one of the focal points leading up to the trip. One of the guises that the government of Kenya uses when going after groups like Haki Africa, Mohori or generally cracking down on civil society, I should note that it's not just about these two groups. These are but an example of really a wider environment of a shrinking civic space. There are two arguments you hear. One, that NGOs are not regulated enough in Kenya. And two, that we need to go after those groups because we suspect links to terrorist financing. So I think it's important to break that down. First of all, there is regulation in Kenya of NGOs. And by the way, there's no problem, per se, with regulating NGOs. I work for an NGO. We have to file tax forms. It is an appropriate exercise of government of authority, only when it's done so not for political purposes. So that's the problem that we keep confronting. There's a public benefits organization law that was passed in 2013. There's been murmurs of amending it, changing it. There was an attempt last year that was quickly rebuffed by international outcry and local pressure. And if it really is about terrorist financing, then let's strengthen the anti-money laundering laws that are in Kenya. And let's support the government of Kenya in going after that specific point. That's something that the US has a tremendous amount of experience in. And lastly, I hope when the president is in Kenya, he does talk about not just the freedom of human rights defenders to operate, but also their personal security. This is something that's incredibly worrisome for us. It's not just about their ability to operate. It's also about their livelihoods, their lives. I know he's not in the room, but I do want to thank Ambassador Bob Godak, our US ambassador and Nairobi, who has been an incredibly staunch supporter of Kenyan civil society and of these two groups. It has meant a tremendous amount to them. And if we can elevate it up to the president, that would be all the better. So this links directly with the US security relationship with Kenya. Because again, these two groups are doing the exact kind of work that we need if we're going to win the war against al-Shabaab. We need those in the communities who are at the forefront of countering violent extremism, of countering radical ideology to be on our side. So rather than shun them, we need to bring them more into the fold. And obviously, the president of the United States recognizes this as evidenced by earlier this year, the countering violent extremism summit, where this kind of message was hammered home again and again. And in fact, Hussein Khalid, who is the executive director of Haki Africa, was invited to that summit. Again, there is a real security threat. I'm not going to argue that there isn't. But we need to be strategic. We need to think about how we're actually going to win. And the government of Kenya can't do it alone. And the tactics used by the security forces are counterproductive. Several years ago, the Open Society Justice Initiative put out a report on the Anti-Terror Police Unit, which operates throughout Kenya. But this report was specifically on their operations in Mombasa and detailed a number of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and other human rights abuses. And one of the main points of the report is that part of the problem is that there is not adequate judicial remedy either for the security force abuses themselves or for the potential terrorists. The title of the report was, we're tired of taking you to court. And that was something that one of the ATP officers that we interviewed said, that time and time again, they had taken a suspected terrorist to court, never got the resolution that they wanted, so he ended up dead. Obviously, that is not going to be a sustainable solution. There needs to be a judicial mechanism for holding potential terrorists accountable, but also for holding those who perpetrate human rights abuses in the security forces accountable. Despite all of the extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances that we've documented, there has never been an arrest of a security force officer for those abuses. That's unacceptable. There was a regional countering violent extremism summit in Kenya recently, and unfortunately, neither Haki Africa nor Muhiri were invited. And that is a real disappointment and I think speaks volumes to the way that the government of Kenya currently views this problem. Again, going back to the CVE summit that was held in Washington earlier this year, where the president and the administration were talking about inclusion, talking about bringing in marginalized communities into this debate, talking about social and economic and political drivers, the government of Kenya was not speaking from that song sheet. And they do not meet with the community the way that we would hope that they would. And I hope that when the president is there later this month that he talks about the fact that with some humility, we have been through this before. We have learned lessons. You have to work with the community from the outset, encourage them to go down to. I think signs of this are happening, by the way, that I have heard from our colleagues in Mombasa that government officials are starting to come down and have these conversations. If that's happening, that's tremendous. That's a sign of progress to keep it going. And also to stress justice for these security abuses. On corruption, all of us were watching with maybe some perplexed looks on our faces as the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission presented what they called their list of shame for the Anglo-Leasing scandal. But then continued to watch as those commissioners were forced to resign due to pressure from the government of Kenya and that there has been a motion to have the Anti-Corruption Commission disbanded. I think we can all agree that corruption is a major issue in Kenya and one that needs to be tackled head-on. That said, that's a Kenyan issue that needs to be resolved in Kenya. That's not something that the US is going to be able to do. The political will has to come from Kenya. The prosecutions are appropriately done inside of Kenya. But I still think that there is something that in the US we can do, which is to look whether the proceeds of any of that corruption land in US soil and if so, what complicity of US institutions is there and how can we rectify that? I do hope that the President talks about corruption and its direct impact on security, terrorism, democracy and human rights and tries to build up some of that political will. But again, I think that is going to have to come from that side. Lastly, on refugees. We were very heartened to hear Secretary Kerry announced $45 million in new funding for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. There's over 600,000 refugees in Kenya. We were also glad to see the court in Kenya strike down the provision of the security law that was passed with haste in December that would have put a cap on the number of refugees in Kenya. That obviously would have been a disaster. It's important to note that there are people in Dodab that were born and raised there and are adults. So sending them back to Somalia with no network of support with a place that they do not know would not only be a violation of international humanitarian law and the principle of refoulement, it also just doesn't make any sense. We have a fellow named Ben Rollins who spent two years in and out of Dodab and one of the aims of his work is to counter this prevailing assumption that Dodab is a hotbed of extremism or a nursery for terrorists. He sees it rather as potentially an engine for middle income growth and moderation that we need to change the way that we see Dodab and not fall into the rhetoric that we hear from so many Kenyan politicians and to a certain extent from the US government itself. By the way, Ben has a book coming out in January called City of Thorns, so stay tuned if I can put it in a plug. First step is to start sending some US government officials to Dodab. They don't really travel there. That if we're going to counter that current framing of what the refugee camp is it needs to start there. So last thing, I think this goes to what Terrence was saying about the journalists who have been released and potentially getting some action ahead of the president's trip. I'm nervous about what's gonna happen after the president leaves, that we might get a little action. We might get some folks out of jail. We might get the bank accounts unfrozen and then as soon as the spotlight is off then they try to pass even more repressive legislation or these guys are re-arrested. So to whatever extent possible that we can forecast some way of ensuring that attention does not completely die down after the president's visit and that yes, we're getting as much as we can using this as leverage, but that we're also ensuring that it's not a temporary measure. Thanks. Thanks Sarah, E.J. Final word. Well, thank you everyone. It's always hard to be last on a panel like this both in terms of trying to keep up with everyone else but also to try to talk about different issues that have already been raised. So what I was planning on doing was actually kind of expanding the lens a little bit in terms of what I think the U.S. security concerns probably will be on this trip and arguably should be certainly from our view. And that's largely because the U.S. security concerns aren't focused just solely on Kenya and Ethiopia but as well on South Sudan and Somalia and arguably Sudan as well. And as everyone knows, there are wars raging in Somalia and South Sudan in particular, but also in Sudan that remain perennial problems and headaches for the administration and countries where there obviously are significant regional stakes that complicate peacemaking efforts. I should note just to make sure we're on the same page that both Ethiopia and Kenya are important security partners for the United States in these wars. Ethiopia has troops in the AU force in Somalia, it's called AMISOM, and two UN forces in Sudan, UNISFA, which is based in the enclave of Abye and Unimid and Darfur. Kenya also has a very large contingent in AMISOM and smaller contingents in Unimid and the UN peacekeeping operation in South Sudan, UNMIS. And this or these operations I should say are costing the U.S. and Western partners hundreds of millions of dollars a year in direct support and also in indirect support that they provide through bilateral training, assistance and other activities. Now clearly these wars are of major concern, both to Ethiopia and Kenya. Somalia and South Sudan border both states and therefore represents huge security threats and also I should add have significant economic repercussions on these countries. Particularly for Kenya, Kenya was very heavily invested in South Sudan before the conflict. Kenya as Ambassador Bellamy mentioned really had staked a lot of attention and hope on building this so-called Lapset Corridor which would have built a huge mega port in Lamu and then created this huge new both transport and infrastructure network that would have expanded throughout East Africa and could have been a model of, or could have been an engine of development for many parts of East Africa and unfortunately of course that's on hold because of the war. Now what's interesting of course is that Addis Ababa is very concerned about the spillover of the conflict in Somalia into its largely Somali-inhabited Ogden region, formerly known as region five and likewise concerned about spillover of the war in South Sudan into the Nuweir and Anuak inhabited Gambela region of its country in the Southwest. Now Roby is a little bit less concerned about South Sudan so far I should add but has as I mentioned before suffered significant economic losses but it has a much greater direct security concern with the war in Somalia which has now become a significant security threat to parts of its country and arguably to its project of devolution and the establishment of a durable state after the implementation of the 2010 constitution. And you are all obviously or hopefully aware of the spectacular attacks that have occurred in Kenya over the last couple of years on Westgate Mall and lastly or lately on Garissa University that have not just exacted a huge humanitarian toll but is increasingly creating divisions between the Muslim minority and the Christian minority in the country and I should add that this of course was one of the goals of those attacks. Now I should add that Kenya intervened in Somalia despite the urging of the US government and other allies to get involved because they wanted to create a buffer zone actually in an effort to try to promote this lap set project that I mentioned but unfortunately it has backfired and rather than trying to contain the problem of al-Shabaab in Somalia it has now largely driven or at least parts of al-Shabaab into Kenyan's own territory. As far as we can tell there now appear to be three autonomous al-Shabaab units actively operating in Northeast Kenya and on the coast. They seem to be operating in small, closely knit and secretly but highly mobile cells that have been able to attack Kenyan targets repeatedly and in fact although it's not reported in Western media they will come in, take over entire villages, hold them for hours sometimes even days before they are forced out. So this is becoming a very significant threat for the Kenyan security services and at this moment they are largely reacting rather than anticipating these attacks by al-Shabaab and al-Shabaab has very very effectively portrayed their operations through a religious lens that is resonating with again the Muslim minority not just in Kenya but also in Somalia we can get into that in detail later but arguably also in other Muslim territories in East Africa and I should mention just to follow up on what Terence was saying even though no one really knows what the numbers are it's probably close to or I should say the Muslim population of Ethiopia is probably close to 40% so this is not a small number of people in Ethiopia it's a very large minority population and they are largely excluded from most national political discourse. Now what is al-Shabaab trying to do in Kenya? Al-Shabaab in Kenya or al-Shabaab is trying to force Kenya to pull its forces out of Somalia. It's also trying to force the national government to retreat in large part from the northeast and the coastal territories and ultimately it is starting to espouse similar goals as ISIS in Syrian and Iraq and Boko Haram in the Lake Chad basin in that it wants to ultimately carve out an Islamic Emirate linked to Muslim majority territories in the rest of the East Coast of Africa and the Horn. But like in Somalia, al-Shabaab is not just focusing on religious grievances it's also using local conflicts and grievances to extend its reach and its aims. And what it's doing it's using frictions between local communities that have to some degree been exacerbated by the Kenyan project to devolve power in an effort to expand its operations and it's a kind of interesting tension that everyone sees even here in the United States, right? Where there's this tension between the national government and the local government and to some degree when the local government becomes empowered that creates even more tensions within local communities as they struggle over who has control over those areas or over those authorities. And that is really, really driving a lot of tensions in Kenya at the moment. It's also interestingly exploiting deep-seated grievances in Kenya over land rights, over who has control over different territories, particularly on the coast, but in other parts of Kenya as well. But I should also add that this is becoming not just a regional issue. It is starting to internationalize in a sense that al-Shabaab is also as far as we understand starting to reach out to other elements of ISIS or other radical groups, particularly in Yemen, that are loosely aligned with ISIS. And this of course has repercussions beyond just the Horn of Africa but can exacerbate tensions through the much larger region. Now unfortunately, what does that mean in terms of trends and trajectories for Kenya? It certainly looks as far as we can tell unless things change dramatically that al-Shabaab will likely maintain, perhaps even increase the tempo of its attacks in the Northeast and on the coast with obviously very significant consequences. And unfortunately, unless Kenya really reforms the way it operates, it reforms how the security services are structured and coordinate, the heavy-handed counterterrorism tactics that it has utilized in the past will only increase the inflamed passions and tensions in the Northeast and on the coast and drive more and more people into the hands of al-Shabaab. Interestingly, or I should say, unfortunately, what these attacks are also doing is it's driving Kenyan civil servants to flee from the Northeast and from some parts of the coast. And what that invariably means that the services or the limited services that those local populations were getting from the government are now actually declining. So you don't only have the grievances that are being exacerbated by heavy-handed security tactics, you also have the grievances that are being exacerbated by perceptions that they are not, or that local populations are not getting the same amount of services that people up-coast are having. And of course, that also feeds into these tensions. Lastly, but not least, what would that also mean for the humanitarian situation? Oh, two minutes, sorry. Well, just briefly, I think we really, really need to be concerned about a humanitarian crisis in the Northeast of Kenya. That's going to affect not just the refugee population that Sarah has spoken about, but just local people as well. And it's be very difficult to access these populations given the security services. Well, I guess just briefly to go ahead because at times clearly what's going to happen is in addition to the messages that President Obama will have to send to the national governments in terms of what they need to do to fix their own problems or their own domestic challenges, is that they will have to resolve the conflicts in South Sudan and Somalia as well for there to be a durable solution to, and I should say durable development in the region. And that really leads us to recommend two recommendations to President Obama. The first is that as he speaks to his Kenyan and Ethiopian interlocutors, there needs to be a recognition that in Somalia, more effort needs to be placed on the politics of rebuilding the state, particularly the bottom-up approach of building the local, state-level institutions rather than focusing on the Somali federal government and Mogadishu. Just supporting Amazon is not going to defeat Al-Shabaab unless you have credible and inclusive institutions in Somalia that Al-Shabaab problem or radicalization in more in general are not going to be addressed. And we think that that's something that needs to be emphasized vis-a-vis Kenya and Somalia. The same thing to some degree needs to be said about the situation of the Civil War in South Sudan. The problem that we really have in South Sudan right now is that we have two warring parties who are relatively weak vis-a-vis their neighboring states, but they have been able to utilize divisions among the neighboring states as to what they would like to achieve in South Sudan to continue to war and to not accept these peace proposals that have been put on the table for quite some time. And the thing that we would ask President Obama to stress again with President Kenyatta and Prime Minister Deselegan is that EGAD states need to resolve their own differences on what they would like to achieve in South Sudan. And once they have done so to pressure the parties that are fighting to accept a deal that is acceptable or well that's not acceptable to any of them but to pressure the parties to accept the deal that's on the table in an effort to move forward and hopefully at least create some kind of a stable transitional government that then can deal with the much larger and deeper issues that have restarted the war there. Thank you. Thanks E.J. And sorry, the last guy who goes kind of gets the axe. Yes, let's take four questions at a time and come back to the panel. We'll go here, the gentleman there, me and the lady, yeah. So start here up front. Thank you very much all for very wonderful presentations. My name is Jerome, I'm with UNAIDS and the United States as you may all know is one of the biggest donors to HIV and AIDS. And I'm wondering if any of you think that AIDS or HIV and AIDS or human rights in relation to HIV and AIDS will feature in President Obama's visit given the renewed importance that Kenya is playing as well with many of the new PEPFA programs like DREAMS and the ACT Initiative focusing on Kenya as one of its initial countries. Thank you. Great, thank you. Gentlemen there. Thanks, George Condon, National Journal. You talked about the issues but as the President indicated yesterday there's an intensely personal aspect to this when you have the first African-American President visiting Africa. Can you talk about that aspect? Has he met the expectations? Do they still feel a special kinship with him? How's that going? Thank you. Nii Akwete. Thank you very much Nii Akwete, African immigrant caucus. I was wondering if the panel will agree. Is it just me or has Washington been walking away from its commitment to democracy across Africa because the President's first visit was to Ghana where he talked about his stressed democracy. Yes, terrorism and security are important. Yes, poverty alleviation and economic development are important but in Accra he made it clear that democracy comes first. Since then it seems to me that it's been receding and so I was wondering if you think I'm wrong. And the lady there. Thank you very much Lily from NED. There are different views related to Obama's visit particularly to Ethiopia. On one hand of course all the development on the economic growth we have been talking about the majority of the people have been excluded and while that is on the ground when people are silenced to talk about it when there is no media, when there is no space for association or any kind of movement. Yes, I'm happy to hear that my friends got out last week but on what condition did they get released? The court did not say anything, there was no reason provided and actually the law says if the prosecutor finds additional evidence they can re-initiate the charge. So it shows that this is just maybe to make Obama happy ahead of his trip. So Obama will come back but the civil society law, the anti-terrorism law will remain in Ethiopia. On the other hand the Ethiopian government is highly advertising Obama's visit. They say his visit is because we have made our homework, we have showed our success as a government and he's going to congratulate them. That's what they tell people on the government media stay at night and there is no other alternative in Ethiopia for the people to hear the other side of the concerns we are talking about here. So there are big question marks in my mind on how Obama is going to make a point in opening political spaces, in opening the media, in amending the civil society laws and the anti-terrorism laws because who is Obama meeting when he goes? Only the government officials will have a chance to talk to opposition parties. Will he have a chance to talk to political prisoners, opposition leaders? How is he going to make a point is still a question for me. Great, thank you. I think we'll turn back to the panel. I mean, one of my hopes is that if he does a photo op with a prime minister, maybe he can do a equivalent photo op with the journalists released. Might send a nice signal even if it's a symbolic one. Why don't we turn to the panel? Does someone want to address the HIV AIDS? I'll just say very briefly because I don't know is the answer to your question, but I did think it was interesting that when I was looking into the numbers around US security assistance to Kenya, it's about $42 million for 2015 and humanitarian assistance, which for the most part is for global health is 545 million. So it's hugely dwarfs our security assistance. And yet that's like all I'm obsessed with and think about. So I take your point that, we need to be thinking about our other assistance and we have a public health program that constantly tries to get that number even higher, but so yeah, I don't have a kind of answer. I mean, I do think it's both of these countries are huge recipients of pretty much every big US assistance program in Africa, Feed the Future, Power Africa, huge investments there among the largest recipients on PEPFAR funding and global health. Kenya is on trade Africa. It goes a bit to Knees Point that democracy is joined by many other programs now. So does it lose its relative weight as kind of interest diversify and programming diversifies? But the US has invested such a great deal in HIV and internal health as well, but it seems that that would come up at least in rhetoric. Yeah, I kind of hope it comes up. I mentioned that for a number of years Kenya was our largest aid recipient, 70% of that global health as Sarah said. And most of that PEPFAR, I don't remember the exact number, but I think it's something like 750,000 Kenyans are now on antiretroviral therapy thanks to the PEPFAR program. That's actually a huge success story. And it's part of the reason that Kenya's doing well on its economic and development agenda. Unfortunately, it's not talked about enough. And one of the things that always frustrated me was that we didn't hear enough from Kenyan authorities about that particular program or about its impact, its favorable impact or about how they viewed what the US was doing in this. Kind of Obama going back to his father's homeland question. You know, first we were talking to Governor Dotto this morning who said that there's huge runaway expectations in Kenya about this trip and huge excitement in Kenya. There was a lot of disappointment when he went to Ghana that he did not make his first trip to Kenya. And I gather there's gonna be an element of kind of returning to his father's roots when he goes. It does seem though that Kenya in and of itself is a place that any US president should visit regardless of what their ancestry might be. I mean, it's important on so many dimensions as Mark said in terms of security, humanitarian, in terms of its position in the Horn, in terms of the governance investments that we've made and the governance concerns that maybe we have today. So there's huge excitement in Kenya and perhaps over excessive expectations of what this trip might deliver. But Kenya on its own is warrants a trip. And so I tend to look at it through that prism rather than the returning, you know, descended. I don't know if anyone wants to remark on that. But maybe on the democracy, or E.J. Well, I guess what I would just say is I don't think that Kenyans think of Obama as African-American. They think of him as Kenyan-American and arguably they even think of him as Luo-American. So, you know, as was said earlier, this was something that they thought they would get much sooner. I mean, this was obviously complicated by the ICC indictment of Kenyatta and some other issues as well. But yes, this is very, very well received in Kenya and I was talking to my colleague yesterday. He said they're spiffing up the Capitol. I mean, one of the things that they're all just happy about is that regardless of what Obama brings, at least the roads are clean. You know, everything has been kind of nicely shined up and so that's one of the deliverables even before he comes. Now, I guess just to kind of move things along. I mean, I think, you know, in all fairness to policymakers, I think the US government walks a very fine line on democracy promotion. I mean, I would certainly argue that sometimes they haven't pushed hard enough. I've worried about something that I've called the peacekeeping veto where there's been a number of countries, particularly in the Horn, that have contributed troops to very important peacekeeping operations in the United States, then using those contributions kind of effectively as a veto, i.e. Rwanda has used this in the past, Museveni has used this as well, this basically say, well, if you continue to criticize us, I'll yank my boys out and I've always argued that, well, maybe you should call their bluff because they're also getting a lot of benefits from having troops in these peacekeeping operations. They're making a lot of money, they're getting a lot of training, they're also getting rid of a lot of troops that otherwise would be sitting at home perhaps causing trouble. The other thing that I do find very, very encouraging at least in terms of use policies that the US government has over the last couple of years been fairly consistent about term limits and pushing this notion that you've been president for your constitutional limit of terms, it is now time for someone else to take over, to have kind of a transfer of power. And I think that that's been a very welcome signal in many, well, it's been a welcome signal for many people in Africa, perhaps not for many aging despots in Africa, but I do think that there's been some measured progress with some I think also very real politic steps back. The last thing just to mention on this issue is that we also have to really think about, well, what the US policy is being created by, right? And part of the problem that we have in Africa, at least in my view is that so much of the money that is allocated for Africa beyond this kind of fixed pep far and feed the future money that's been allocated and essentially is kind of an autopilot is largely allocated to the Defense Department and the security services. And so what you see in Africa is a lot of the money that the United States is spending is spent on security stuff. And I think that's unfortunate. It's so unfortunate that even Robert Gates at one time said, look, we are spending too much on the military and not enough on the State Department and other softer elements of US foreign policy power. Can I just add on that? I was also going to raise this issue of third terms because that has been so solidly at the top of the priority list for US policy in Africa. It seems like the US government has chosen a couple of these concrete issues that they're willing to go to bat for. And maybe to those of us who are on the outside, we get frustrated when they're not covering all the things we want them to. But beyond the term limit issue, I think also LGBT rights. If you look at what the US has done on LGBT rights in Africa, it's been unequivocal, right? And sometimes to the point where it backfires, but nevertheless, it has been a stated policy. I think that the frustration comes in the unequal application of this treatment, right? I know there are lots of folks within Zimbabwe who wonder why they get treated a certain way when the folks in Ethiopia get treated completely differently when really, if you look at it empirically, almost the same set of issues exist. So I think that's something that the US government could work on is the more uniform application, but that gets into all of these other, as E.J. mentioned, real politic issues. But it's funny that you brought up Rwanda, because I was actually gonna use that as an example of where I think finally the US government did change a longstanding, entrenched set of blinders that it had for Rwanda when finally it was faced with the M23 crisis in Eastern Congo, and it did take certain steps to sanction Rwanda. I mean, granted, I think the pendulum has probably swung back, but regardless, I think we can pick and choose a couple of instances where they have gone to bat. One response to Lily's point about on Ethiopia, and I'm just gonna use it as a way to tie back to something that, I guess it was Sarah said, is that it is very important to watch what happens after the trip and to make sure that any of the symbolic openings or release of prisoners or loosening of regulations, unfreezing of bank accounts, that those remain in place. And that's always a very difficult thing to do. So many of the people who are here today are here because of the president's trip to ask for that focus in September, October, and November is always gonna be much more difficult. And so it's just, I think, the challenge for us to try to keep attention on these issues even when the president is not on the ground. Thank you so much. That's an interesting panel. And I wanted to bring you back to some of these issues of health and rights and empowerment to talk about the issues of women's health and empowerment, in particular women and girls. You mentioned the Dreams Initiative, you mentioned PEPFAR, the issues of women and girls and their access to health services, their economic and social empowerment, legal protection. Those are all underpinnings for the economic development and the security issues that you've touched on. So fully, so I wonder if you could address for a minute whether you think, especially given what the Obama Administration has put in place in terms of strategies and policies and rhetoric on moving forward the agenda on women and girls, do you expect that he will be raising this and weaving this in to these other important messages? And if not, why not? I'm Mena Demasey with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. I wanted to get back to Professor Lyons' question earlier about whether or not the counter-terrorism strategies are supporting or inhibiting stability. And when we talk about economic stability, it seems in large part, Al Shabaab's, one of their most successful strategies is capitalizing off of economic despair so that at a very basic level, you have people who are sort of complicit in driving or at least sustaining corruption, not because they have these ideological beliefs one way or another, but because they're trying to get food on their plate. And so my question has to do with sort of more of the long-term strategy of the U.S. putting pressure on the governments both in Kenya and Ethiopia with regard to supporting long-term economic stability, which is very much fundamentally tied to political stability. So just seconding my sister's questions here in terms of participatory democracy, and it's one thing to measure economic growth in terms of the number of buildings that are built in the roads that are being built by the Chinese, but when you talk about sort of the masses profiting from economic growth in the country, it becomes another question. So I'm curious about the comments you have in that regard. Thank you. My name is Obang Mehto from Solidarity and Ethiopian Human Rights Organization. There's, I would like to ask Terran Lanz. So there's things that which is I would like you to allude it to if you can, as you can tell in Ethiopia's, recently like a while ago, International Crisis Group wrote a letter saying that Ethiopia was a time bomb in terms of ethnicities. And when you talk, you didn't mention that. For us, when we look at it, I think that the gentleman said when Obama went to Ghana, he said what Africa needs is strong institution, not strong man, but now he has the chance to address the strong man's when you go to artists. And also that as the ambassador was saying that when he's in Kenya, he's going to meet with civil society, but in Ethiopia, civil society does not exist. And Terran Lanz, you mentioned also about the land graph. And for me, I came from Gambela Regional Southwest of Ethiopia. For me, I don't call it a land graph. It's a live graph. When you take away the land, you take the life of those people. So in this case, we have an Ethiopian economic growth. It is an elite growth. Ethiopian boom, it is a few ethnic group booms. And it seemed to be this what we hear. Ethiopian has been used as examples by the West or darling. There's something which is missing. And I think Ambassador made it that the US or Obama demonstration has failed to be on the side of the people, but to be on the side of the regimes. And then the side of the people is the side of the principle. What is it that can president do when he go there to make sure that his policies not about a regime or not about autocratic regime, but it's about the people. So this is something that which I thought that about ethnicity in Ethiopia in the long run, if it's continued like this, it's going to explode. Right now, Ethiopia is screaming silence. It is a matter of time before it explodes. And if it does, again, all the things which has been done in the last, when the past will be gone. So my question is the ethnicity part of it. In Ethiopia, it's a few group that control in the country where the majority are suffering. Is that any way you think this can be addressed to the policymaker to the best that they will understand. In the long run, if they want stability on Ethiopia and East Africa, they have to be on the side of the people, not on the side of autocratic regime. Thank you. Thank you very much. And the gentleman here. And then we're getting towards time. Hello, my name is Ryan Musser. I'm with the Center for International Private Enterprise. I just wanted to try and bring in the private sector into this conversation. In Kenya, leading up to with the elections, in 2008, the private sector played a crucial role in bringing peace during that time. One of our partners, the Kenya Private Sector Alliance, was very involved in that. Currently, we're working with a partner, the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, who are working with local governments to deal with security issues in Kenya. And in Ethiopia, we're one of the only democracy groups that are working in Ethiopia because we're working with Chambers of Commerce, which are not under the CSO law. So I feel like there's a lot of space for the private sector to get involved in these issues that we talked about today. So I'd love to hear how you think Obama on this trip could utilize the local private sector to deal with these issues. Okay, just a couple of quick points. In answer to Janet's question, is this issue going to be raised? Is this important issue going to be raised? I'd say two things. One, I think there's probably perfect congruence from the government of Kenya, the government of the United States on these issues, and they could happily issue a statement talking about how they jointly consider this to be a priority, and it's something that we could work on together. Is this going to take up time, or is this going to be discussed between President Obama and President Kenyatta? I'd say probably not. Why? Because consider that time management and controlling agendas are going to be very difficult during this visit. The President's going to have maybe an hour, maybe 90 minutes together within Kenyatta, maybe a couple of meals, and some time on the margins of meetings. So it's going to be a real crush to deal with a whole series of regional, global, and some of these bilateral interests I mentioned earlier. That's not to say that some sort of a statement couldn't be issued, or that this issue couldn't be part of a larger joint statement about where Kenya and the United States are working closely together, particularly on global health issues. And on the private sector part of it, the private sector is a big part of the success story, the recent economic success story in Kenya. The global entrepreneurship that the President is attending will in fact showcase the role of the private sector. I think the President also wants to highlight how many American firms have relocated to Nairobi over the past five or six years, have made Nairobi the hub of their expanding activities in Africa. So I expect that the role of the private sector will be very visible, certainly at least during the visit to Kenya, and will be part of this celebration of Kenya's economic success. Thank you, and thank you for all of your comments. The two that I maybe want to reflect on were Obang and my friend from the Congressional Black Caucus. To me, come back to a kind of a long-term versus short-term agendas, which is a generic problem, a consistent problem with U.S. foreign policy, is that the short-term, even often fiscal year, or what's going to happen on this visit kind of agenda versus where do you want to be in 10 or 15 years, very, very difficult for U.S. policymakers to answer the question, where do you want this to look? What do you want the relationship to be like at 2030? And so that's that we may, and that's I think true everywhere around the world for decades, and so I don't think it's particularly true here. A part of the challenge on this long-term versus short-term is this question that, the way I raised it is that, is the assumption that Ethiopia will be a force of stability, is that assumption, does it need to be questioned? And the question, again, is in the short-term, I actually think it probably likely is to be stable. It's a party, this is strong men are strong institutions, one of the strongest institutions in Africa is the EPRDF. It's a party of seven million people with cadres in every single village, top-down hierarchy, I didn't say democratic, you noticed, but a very, very strong institution that can get certain things done, particularly if they're top-down kind of things done. And I'm not, and so I think that in the short-term, particularly so long as if they can keep a modicum reasonable levels of economic growth, is that they're likely to be stable. And that's the time bomb analogy, right? How long is the fuse? Well, we don't know. One day is it 10 years. That's why the time bomb analogy doesn't get us at what we really need to know. And that is how far into the future should we be worried? Is this imminent? Or is this something we'll be talking about? My friend, David Throop is here, and we had this discussion in Ethiopia in 1995 on how long is this regime gonna last? I mean, it was almost the exact same question of how long is the fuse? Well, you know, it lasted quite a while. It lasted the first 25 years. The next 25 years are gonna be hard. Two very quick points. One to my colleague from the CBC Foundation. I'm not gonna do it justice, but Mercy Corps recently put out a report. I don't know if you all saw it, but they were looking at the drivers of violent extremism and they went in with the assumption that they would be primarily economic, social, political, and found that the number one driver was actually a sense of seeking accountability. That they felt like the system in which they were operating, there was no accountability. So this goes back to all of these points that we've been making about security force, human rights abuses, and accountability for those. So just to add another layer to that narrative. And then on the side question, absolutely I think to echo what Ambassador Bellamy said, that the private investment is going to be at the heart of this visit. You know, this narrative of Africa rising and of all of the opportunity for investment in Africa has become so pervasive. And I think in an attempt to counter the usual tropes about Africa, which I'm very thrilled to see that we're moving away from some of that development and poverty and conflict that that's all we ever talk about. That said, it's not all rosy, right? And I think we're sort of seeing that some folks are saying we're not there yet, right? If you're looking at how Africans' lives are changing in a real way when it comes to economic development and growth, we have a long way to go. Well, I guess two quick points. One to reiterate, what Sarah to some degree said is it certainly is our position that it's not poverty that drives jihadism. I think it's inequality that drives jihadism. It's this perception that certain communities are benefiting and others are not. And that's being exploited by jihadist groups. And it's almost invariably not just religiously based, but it's also based on these local grievances that are very important in explaining where people are being recruited in particular areas where religious conflict is prevalent. I mean, I think on the business issue, I mean, clearly what's happening is that the United States caught on very, very late that there was this huge market in Africa that so far the Chinese and other Asian countries have been much more effective at exploiting. And it, you know, there has been a larger, I think, strategic project by the Obama administration that to some degree started with the Africa summit last year and it's being continued now with this visit to this entrepreneur conference to promote U.S. businesses to Africa and vice versa to get U.S. businesses to recognize that there's lots of opportunities in Africa. I think that's a win-win. I think it's a win-win for U.S. businesses in the sense that they can make money. I think it's a win-win for Africa because obviously that does drive economic growth and as potentially what it does is it creates competition. It creates competition between Western firms and Chinese firms. And as everyone probably knows in this room, there's been some pushback in Africa in general as to what Chinese firms particularly are doing. And I think that there are some areas, particularly when it comes to corporate responsibility and some other issues where the United States actually has a competitive advantage to other countries and other businesses. So I really think that that's a win-win and it's logical for Obama to be pushing this and promoting this in both Kenya and in Ethiopia and that has ramifications not just for those two countries but for the region as a whole. I think that unfortunately from our crisis group perspective, the one thing that is really holding back our real takeoff for the region are these chronic wars that have not been resolved. And unless they resolve those chronic wars, that growth is going to be much more subdued. And once those wars are resolved, you will really see a takeoff in terms of growth. I mean, if you saw what was happening in Juba over the last four or five years after separation and before the collapse into war again, it was amazing how much money was being pumped into there. I mean, you go to Mogadishu and even there's all this mess around the capital. There's a huge amount of money going into that city at the moment because there's a lot of people who are very, very eager to start businesses there, to restart their lives there, to get the economy going and that should be supported. Just on that last minute, I mean, the big challenge of this that comes across is getting the balance, I think, right. I think the private sector focus is important in policy terms too. Ultimately, we don't get a lot of leverage from foreign assistance and kind of the, whether it's PEPFAR or other. I think that kind of ties, more diverse ties between countries, including economic, investment and trade relationships, builds a stronger relationship and ultimately may give us greater leverage and influence over the governments. Second is a middle class as we've seen and the point was made, a growing middle class in these countries begins to exert pressure with some autonomy because it has resources at its command and the government needs that, can begin to exert pressure in terms of rule of law, contract sanctity and privatization. So I think there's, beyond simply the trade benefits of it, I think there are policy benefits to it as well that may give the US greater voice on other issues, including governance and so forth. Listen, I wanna thank the panel, really excellent presentations and the audience for really thoughtful questions and comments. We'll look forward to the trip and hopefully do a post-trip analysis of what actually came with this. So thanks all very much. Of course Mortem, no.